Safety Hierarchy of Control

I was recently asked what ESH & S is and what it means. What it stands for is Environmental, Safety, Health, and Security. To many of you, that may seem like “overkill”. To others it is “wasted money”. Governmental agencies require codes, standards, and regulations to ensure that workers and the public are safe and both employers and employees must follow them.

Safety is a part of the business from conception to completion and is involved in all parts of the operation to offer guidance, answer questions, help problem solve, and of course to ensure regulatory compliance to keep employees safe. Our Safety Culture at SSOE Group is one that openly encourages safe behaviors, both on and off the project. We can do this by ensuring that proper training is given and that open communication is present to alert others to hazards. If we can identify a hazard and then communicate that message to others, we have taken the steps toward accident prevention.

We must motivate employees to be safer on their own and cannot force or monitor them around the clock. Engaging employees in safety means not only creating awareness of what to do, but also why it’s important to them. When people start to think in terms of what is at stake or what is the risk / loss, they will inherently pay closer attention. A company with a strong Safety Culture will have a commitment to Safety from both leadership and workers. When dealing with risk, we need to be aware of the Hierarchy of Controls to evaluate risk.

The best way to manage risk is by elimination. If you are not eliminating the hazard, you are allowing the situation to still exist, thus exposing workers to risk. At the bottom is providing PPE to keep people safe. Using PPE is nothing more than applying a band-aid to the wound, nothing prevented the risk from occurring and therefore the hazard is always present. If the PPE works, it will protect the worker, but if the PPE doesn’t work, the employee is exposed to the hazard! The steps start with the widest and best option and run to the smallest option and the worst-case scenario.

Safety Scott says “For Safety’s Sake, Do Something” and work safe!